Are Oral Contracts Valid?

When two people speak to each other alone, the only record of the conversation are the memories of the speaking parties. This is exactly the problem with oral contracts. The only witness you have is the memory of the other party you make the contract with.

Well, if you are suing this person to enforce the contract that he clearly doesn’t want to, what stops him from denying that the contract ever existed? In the end, establishing the existence of the contract comes down to who the court trusts to be telling the truth.

From experience, I can tell you that this is a very tricky process.

Contracts That Can’t Be Oral

In Florida, there are some contracts that have to be in writing due to their importance and the complexities involved. An example of this is a real estate contract. So, if you make a real estate contract and it is not in writing, you will have a hard time getting it enforced by the court.

Establishing The Existence Of An Oral Contract

Despite the fact that an oral contract is harder to establish, you can still enforce it if you can prove some essentials. What you have to prove are the basic elements of a contract. That there was an offer, and acceptance, and valuable consideration.

It will be easier to establish the existence of an oral contract if you have witnesses to confirm what you allege. Things become easier if more than two people entered into the agreement. This way, the testimony of the other people can help the court establish the truth.

You can also use other types of evidence like email correspondence between the parties before the oral contract was reached.

Consider Putting It To Writing

A lot of business contracts have complex details. Trying to establish the authenticity of each detail based on the testimony of witnesses can be time-consuming and inaccurate. You can simply make all these problems go away when you put your contracts into writing.

Parties are even less likely to breach an agreement when their obligations are clearly spelled out in writing. So, a written agreement saves you the possible costs you might incur in suing to enforce the contract.

Conclusion

In addition to making sure you use written contracts, you need it to be well constructed to protect your interests and clearly spell out obligations for the parties.